He grinned broadly from the corner
a percussive serrated smile,
cadaverous lips displaying
a rakish scarecrow style.
His emaciated figure chattered
suspended precariously from a hook;
I was completely startled
by his penetrating look.
His wink was disconcerting,
those vacant eyes held wide;
I wouldn’t call him cheeky
though he displayed a gangly pride.
One arm extended slightly
as if inviting my embrace;
it might feel a little morbid
held against that hollow face.
Gothic trends might call him charming
though his apparel seems unique,
one would only see it hanging
in a nudist colony boutique.
One dance was all he wanted
waltzing the orthopedic floor,
that physician’s skeletal dummy
I just couldn’t make myself ignore.
July 31, 2026
Skeletons Poetry Contest
Seth Pina, Sponsor
Written: January 22, 2026 For Gregory Richard Barden's Syncopated Cinqopet Poetry Contest
___________________
By nightfall, gentle winds all blow,
The bright stars soar with cheerful flow.
The dreaming world at last does glow,
Soft pulses in silence wait.
The crave curbed, not fully sate.
Beneath the thin sky, the pond lies,
Where wispy reeds in languor size.
Below the waves, soft songs arise,
Lands where all its grace does dwell.
Where bliss drifts through silent swells.
An echoing palimpsest drifts.
As fancied rhythms weave all their gifts,
And cloud and clod do gently shift.
In nexus threads - web is spun.
Day gives way to setting sun.
The clangor fades to whispers mild,
A spell that calms the troubled mind.
No cure stands firm; balm reconciled,
Its core is still held through time.
In sighs, longing turns sublime.
Through hubris, catharsis takes form,
A rakish truth the tongue won’t norm.
From day is born, the rising storm,
Quintessence of time makes chime.
A bell tolls through wretched time
Tag: Elysium
Written: November 06, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Karen Jones
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December can be a seraphic break ... not a trek through squalor—
No wheezy winds, no stygian moods ... no suction of sodden days,
Let it simmer with the warmth ... of rapture and rosemary stew.
Let the nimbus sky festoon the trees ... with blithesome skeuomorph snow—
Each flake is a serendipity whisper ... a spark of pure grace,
Let the river rime ripple ... as a rakish scarf on the hills.
Let the roost resound with stories ... sages, and escorts alike—
While the air sizzles with ... mellifluous sigh and a hint of lard,
Let the rugged year resile ... ratified by insight and treacle.
Let the vault of stars above ... be a tailored zenith of light —
A quixotic quilt stitched by ... Siamese dreams and slack-jawed awe,
Let bleak hours resile into ... symbiosis with joy, not scorn.
Allow the standard hush of snow ... to soften the slur of time —
And a slender sickle of hope ... scythes the stench of the past,
Let December be the soul of ... what we almost dared to believe.
Written: November 05, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Hilo Poet
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He ruled with a rakish grin ... a slack scythe in his sanguine fist—
A pharaoh of spurious gloat ... redolent of lard and treacle,
His laws ratified in rapture ... festooned the sacred with spit.
A seraglio of skeuomorphs ... hailed his wondrous fashion sense—
The riparian fields sank ... in soaked squalor and dysania,
He wore a nimbus of stink ... a stygian sherpa to dire fate.
In his sesquipedalian bragging ... the soul of land grew slack—
Each boast is a blur, each law ... a grieving gasp of suction,
Even the seraphic ibis flinched ... its wings dimmed by his shadow.
With tales of Siamese stars and stew ... he won over the jury—
Though the slack-jawed and gaunt group ... gnawed on serendipity bones,
There was no spark ... just the sizzle of sand in a dying sun.
Now his tomb lies amid a cold dune ... decked with dysenteric myths—
A janiform relic of zeitgeist and treason ... stripped of all zest,
The sovereign ruin ... no ripple, no ravel, no rove of resile.
I say to le "grand fromage".
You and your pastiche attachè.
You with all your rakish, cliche.
You think you're so Debonair.
You with another au pair.
You and one more rendezvous.
You again it's déjà vu.
You and another faux pas.
You always with Au revoir.
I say so much "bon voyage.
Written: February 13, 2023
____________________________________________
An anathema for,
pilose nettle burns,
an art form of unstable feathers,
tropes across the ivory cuticles.
Melted mascarpone in a figurine,
pearlescent obsidian,
hooping sapped spirit,
sight of the blue sky.
within her boneless flesh,
the artist grumbles severely,
in a strained, velvety voice,
jumping into the air.
Prima picture goes away,
with feeble equine acclaim,
the nest of the forlorn swan,
embracing an ethereal dawn.
Whimsical soprano,
barely etched in matte black,
diploid remains,
a flawless fleck of fascinating fright.
Rakish Requiem for an,
unrequited magnum opus,
rushing on pinewood stains,
on the cusp of collapse.
As she droops on the ladder,
the impresario draws the
opera curtains closer,
while soothing music,
numbs her toes.
When Requiem strolls,
across the stage to the tune of
Mozart pianissimo,
he manages to pull off,
fulfills a task with accuracy.
2nd place contest winner
Raucous
Raucous, rollicking rain
Rambles on hills and plains,
Relishes rumbles in
Raptures of raw laughter,
Raindrops razzle-dazzle,
Rambunctious and rowdy,
Riots of rakish rascals
A dollup
A trollup
A mole and a troll
Free spring it and wing it
…reach for the loftiest goals
A habit-ish hobbit
with a knob and grommet
is wearing a rakish sneer
All grasping and gobble
foam and fobble
Listen!
and you can hear
A rabbit…"Gosh nabbitt!"
A frog and a log
…all frolic, bucolic in the wondrous bog
All foggy and noggy
And wet noodle woggy
…The Farmaduke start to caw
Johnny Rocko was born to be a salesman.
His words are breezy.
He has a devil-may-care attitude.
His ways are playful and jaunty.
He is the pied piper of Chicago.
Other young men rush to buy his wares.
They love his schemes, his ideals and his ideas.
He wines and dines them, and they have a great time.
Some of them have been cut off from their inheritance.
They stick around anyway; he is the sun. They bask next to him.
Johnny Rocko is debonair and delightfully dashing.
He is a rakish playboy-like salesman.
It does not matter what he is selling, people want to buy.
He always has beautiful women rubbing his back.
Most of them are like him, attractive and unrestrained.
A governess, a guardian of the young, so known and dear as to be called “Mother” and a noblewoman, just barely 12 by age, named Portia, sit talking as the sun sets the stage for a cool, cloudless night.
“Mother, who invented candlelight and the slow, delicate brush of lips?”
“Some rakish boy, pawning his experience for present pleasure, no doubt.”
“Say true, Mother. If you were a man, would you find this common body worthy of love?”
“You show no blemish child, and display a certain bony voluptuousness - I should think.”
The governess begins to comb and braid Portia’s hair for sleep.
“I saw Portincio this morning, in the courtyard.”
“The boy from Padua?”
“He’s a man Mother, and his cast portents a passion so sweet - it shakes my very frame.”
Mother chuckles, “Even hopeless birds sing in cages.”
“I am not hopeless!” Portia writhes angrily, like a snake about to strike but mother calms her.
“Shoo, shoo, now,” Mother purrs, brushing all the more gently, “I meant nothing of it.” After a moment, she continues, “Love is more than coquetry, little one, and it soon passes - like a parade, or a rash. For now, be happy, you are like the chaste stars - unreachable.”
Once the “go to guy”
I linger, ever hopeful
Of a need to fill.
Long for the
Tickle
Of long grass
Crackle
of fallen leaves
Scent
of the garden.
I am older
my handle
slightly splintered
my tines
bent
several missing.
Mocked
by motored newcomers
I wait
knowing
there are still times
that situations
will call for
The “go to guy”
John G. Lawless
©1/8/2023
William Collins in poetic mode
wrote some verse in an ode
Also rakish by repute
& melodic balance non did dispute
Across the fields he stands,
rakish hat, straw arms
sticking out of an old jacket,
painted face, pantlegs flapping.
The corn is ripening, and
the tassels blow in the wind.
The scarecrow’s pants make
a snapping noise when
they slap against the pole.
But the crows are oblivious,
not fooled for a minute
by the ersatz man who is
standing there waving his arms,
because crows are smart.
They can identify people by
their faces, while we cannot
tell one crow from another.
They are thieves and tricksters,
and there is no way you can
beat them at their own game.
They land in murders, some
landing on the foolish hat,
and caw in loud, raucous laughter
at the folly of the farmer
Fantastic fabulous frisky faeries flitter forever
Luxuriously loving lady-like likeable lilies
Obliterating outgoing outlandish ostentatious orchid
Wonderful whimsical warmhearted warlock wiggles wind
Effervescent ebullient elegant elves eagerly expedite Echinacea
Relieved rambunctious radiant roses replenishes rakish Rudbeckia
A rakish young fellow from Duluth
Completely hooked on gin and vermouth
Drank like a fish
Out of a dish
Somewhere along the way lost his couth.
May 27, 2021
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